Nanowrimo

Tomorrow is November first, which in the world of the writer is an important day! Why? November first marks the first day of national novel writing month. It is known as nanowrimo. It may sound like a rare type of rhino or some strange disease. Really though, it means craziness. People across the nation pick up their pens and start writing the novels they always wanted to write, and they write the entire thing (minimum of 50,000 words) in a month. If it sounds nuts, it is. To be a writer, you have to be insane. Writers hear voices in their heads. For real. When a story is brewing, we hear the conversations of our characters, we picture the scenery, and we live in a half dream-like state drifting from real life to our own fictional world. So, crazy? You bet!

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty facts! The event starts at 12:00 AM November first and ends November 30^th at 11:59 PM. You can go to www.nanowrimo.org to sign up. Here you can set up your account, receive pep talks from published authors, and upload your word count everyday! Then for the next month, you write like a madman. If you complete your 50,000 word novel by the end of the month you are considered a winner. This includes a nice pat on the back for yourself. Okay, so you also get a web badge if you have a blog, and there are other incentives. My very favorite is that there is a company called CreateSpace (a sponsor) who will print five copies of your finished novel for free!

There are not very many rules. You have to write 50,000 words minimum. It has to be a novel you haven’t started any writing on. You can have an outline, research, and character sketches done, but no actual chapters, sentences, words from your novel written. You also can’t write with another person. It is you and only you on this. However, you can converse with other nanowrimo writers on the forums on their webpage listed above.

If you are a teen older than 13, you can participate in the adult contest, or you can do the young writers program. In the young writers program you can make a word count goal to shoot for instead of writing the full 50,000 words! Here is the website for the young writers- www.ywp.nanowrimo.org .

Look for more nanowrimo posts coming soon!

The Ultimate Bag Lady

I was reading my Bible the other day and came across a passage that surprised me so much that I about lost the swallow of coffee I had just sipped. Right in the middle of the page was the perfect description of me. I read it through a couple of times, and realized something crucial about myself- I am a bag lady.

Those of you who know me are probably somewhat confused. A bag lady is notoriously known as a homeless lady who carries all of her belongings around in her bags. Although I tend to tote a fairly large bag filled with notebooks and pens around, I don’t exactly qualify for the definition of bag lady we are all familiar with. However, I assure you that the Bible says I am a bag lady and it’s possible you could be one too (or if you are a male and you are reading this feel free to substitute bag man, or bag he, or bag muscles, you know something other than bag lady). If you head to 1^st Samuel 10, you will see what I mean.

To set the stage, God has called Saul to be king. He is said to be a head taller than all of the other Israelites. He is a great warrior. Israel begs God for a king and God specifically tells the prophet Samuel that it will be Saul. Samuel anoints Saul and signs of Saul’s kingship are fulfilled. When all of the tribes are brought together to find out who will be made their king, this is what happens-

“So they inquired further of the Lord, ‘Has the man come here yet?’ And the Lord said, ‘Yes, he has hidden himself among the baggage.’” -1^st Samuel 10:22

Everything is perfect, everything is set. It is finally time to make the big announcement and the future king is… hiding in some baggage?

Umm, why is the great awaited king ducking beneath a burlap sack? Who does that? Within seconds of reading it I realized that I do that… all the time. That is me through and through. I am a coward. I like hiding. I am the ultimate bag lady. Stuff me in a suitcase and boy will I be happy.

Or… maybe I won’t. Since I was little girl there has been a part of me that has always wanted to write and tell stories. Over the years I’ve heard whispers of my calling- my head spinning with ideas, my sisters begging for another tale, a friend’s enthusiasm, a professor’s kind words, and yet I’m still hiding in the baggage writing in the dark.

In the bottom of my Bible there is a commentary and it says that Saul was hiding because he was scared. He was given a lot of responsibility and didn’t want to fail or be ridiculed. Hmm, sounds like someone I know. What if I claim to be a writer and a year from now I have no agent? What if I spend hundreds of hours on my stories and extra money for no good reason? What if people think I’m crazy? What if I’m really not that talented?

I can almost hear God, “Yeah, I’m here to claim my baggage. It’s the one over there with the blonde pony tail hanging out of it.” In a quieter voice, “I gave her ideas, I gave her encouragement, and I gave her the means to get it done. Why is she still stuffed in there?” I can picture him walking over to his baggage and unzipping it just enough so he can see my eyes.

So, I have a decision to make. I can be like Saul and hide among the baggage. Saul was the anointed leader. He was huge, he won battles, and yet when it was time to face the public, he was afraid to accept what God had given him. Now I may not be very tall, and I’d be flattened in an actual battle, but God has given me a heart to write. I can hide from it or try and forget it. I can push aside the encouragement he has given me, or I can unzip the rest of the suitcase and reach my hand out and believe that he wants me to stop being a bag lady, and be who he has called me to be.

And I wonder if most of us are like that- given talents, given callings, and yet we give up, or we’re scared to pursue them. We tuck ourselves safely into our suitcases and refuse to come out. If you think about it though, sitting in luggage is stifling. It is dark, hot, sticky, and not to mention, boring. So I encourage you to not be like Saul, and to not be like me. If there is something your heart longs to do, don’t be afraid to throw the burlap sack aside, and go after it. The journey may be rocky, or it may not even work out, but at least you were brave enough to go on the adventure, and then there always is the possibility that you will fulfill your dreams and change not only your own life, but others lives along the way.

A Blank Page- A New Journey

A brand new notebook is magical with its crisp white pages and lines waiting to be filled. There is something about knowing that over the next hours, days, and months ink letters will spread across the sheets filling them with life and adventure. What I love most about journaling is the beginning and the end. When I start that very first page I do not know where life will take me. I do not know what trials I’ll face or what triumphs I’ll have. What I do know is that by the time my pen has crossed the last page, whether good or bad, I will have lived life. I will have had smiles and laughs, and tears and pain. Through it all, not only will I have managed to make it, but I will have learned and grown along the way.

This blog is the start of a new journal. I’m finally ready to make the step from at home writer to published author. This small space on the web that I get to claim as my own is waiting to be filled with the tales of my journey as I try to pursue my dream. I don’t know what will be thrown my way, I don’t know if I will succeed or fail, but I do know that I am excited to make this trip and share it with you as I go along.